Yoga is Unchristian?
My hotel’s concierge lounge always has Headline News on their extremely large television- and just a minute ago I saw a story flash by about Yoga being “Unchristian”.
So I went to Google and checked it out. Google actually returned 64,500 results for “yoga is unchristian”!
It turns out that A LOT of people think this way and there is actually an ongoing debate on the topic.
Crazy, right?
This article has a bunch of great examples of christian craziness at it’s best.
For example…
Laurette Willis of Tulsa, Okla., a yoga veteran of 22 years and a born-again Christian, said the feeling of euphoria she got from yoga left her vulnerable to “psychic influences” she believed to be demonic. “Yoga led me down a false rosy path,” Willis said. ” It opened the door to 20 years of involvement in the New Age movement.”
Once Laurette found Christ in 1987, she stopped doing yoga and developed something called “PraiseMoves, Fitness for His Witness” - “a series of 20 stretches set to Scripture”.
and…
Daniel Akin, dean of the school of theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said Christians who are drawn to the physical benefits of yoga should avoid its spiritual and psychological underpinnings. “Yoga is rooted in Eastern mysticism, and Eastern mysticism is incompatible with Christianity,” he said. “There are some people who are looking for relaxation in the form of meditation, but I don’t see the need to go to yoga to do that,” Akin said, adding that the Bible holds ample opportunities for meditation.
Thanks Laurette and Daniel! I don’t know WHAT we’d do without great Christians like you keeping our Western mysticism pure and free from the evil influences of Eastern mysticism.
